NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu has revealed surprising insights about the space rock's rugged surface composition. When the spacecraft arrived at Bennu in 2018, it discovered physical characteristics that differed significantly from Earth-based observations conducted in 2007, prompting scientists to investigate the underlying causes.
New research suggests that deep internal cracks within Bennu explain the asteroid's unexpectedly rough and rocky terrain. These structural features appear to have shaped the asteroid's surface in ways that were not detectable from Earth-based telescopic observations over a decade earlier.